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A few days ago I received a copy of Pirate Hunter (Tortuga in European territories); reading the description was like a time warp back to ’87. It sounded an awful lot like the pirates I loved so much. I popped in the disc and started to play.
Gameplay:
You are a captain in the Caribbean; you are forced to start off your work for the country of Spain in the first of 4 time periods present in the game. Your mission, to capture 3 foreign ports/towns (belonging to the other 3 nations in the game: France, England or Holland). This seems a simple task at first, but it turns out to be quite the daunting adventure. You start off with a small ship, a crew of 50 men and a bunch of cannons. All right, we have all the essentials so let’s be on our way and get this first and easy mission out of the way. 2 hours later and I have yet to capture my first bloody port. This brings us to our first type of battle in the game. In order to capture or in most cases loot an enemy town, you have to take out the town's defenses, and then your men will proceed into the town to loot it taking the money and in some cases goods as well. Capturing a town is easier said than done with just one ship and a handful of cannons, and you will first have to do a lot of sub-missions before you are ready. The other type of battles you can immerse yourself in, is sea battles. They are relatively straightforward; you control the ship with the mouse, move with the right button and fire your cannons with the left one. You have a status window in the left part of the screen where you can switch between ammunition types. Combating several ships at once can be quite difficult, but once you get used to this type of play it’s a lot of fun.
When visiting a friendly port the player can engage himself in a wide variety of activities. The towns consist of a number of buildings. There is the merchant where you can trade away the goods that you have acquired by looting other ships and towns, or that you acquired by buying goods for lower prices in some towns an selling them in others for higher prices when they are scarce (duh). Another building is the tavern, here you can enjoy a game of (not so very) friendly dice for a sum of money of your choice; you can also sometimes meet people here that want to hire you for a mission or maybe sell you a treasure map or two. The third building I want to mention is the shipyard, here you can repair your ships, sell ships you have captured or no longer need etc. etc. In some towns there is also a governor’s mansion where you can get news and take missions for the crown. Before you can partake in any missions you will first have to gain some notoriety. You can do this for example by capturing or killing some notorious pirates, each town has a list of pirates currently wanted for crimes against the crown. The list shows the name of the pirate, the last location he was seen and how dangerous he is. You can also choose to just ignore the whole working for the crown concept and become a pirate of your own; you will however gain a bad rep with the nation whose ships you loot and they will open fire when you try to sail into one of their ports. When you've had enough of your adventures you can sail into a friendly port, divide the loot and get some early retirement. Besides offering a good amount of strategy gameplay there are also a lot of adventure elements for the player to enjoy. This adds considerably to the replay value of the game. After gaining some status you can start doing some sub missions for the governor of the nation that employs you as well. This ranges from exploration missions to hunting down sunken treasures and important documents.
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The game lacks multiplayer which I think is really a shame; it would have been great to play with several friends and roam the Caribbean trying to sink each other.
Graphics:
The graphics in each section of the game differ; when visiting a town it consists of a nice looking 3d render with some nice overlaid animations of town activity. The world map so to speak consists of a high overview of the area from a 3d isometric point of view. The most important and also most detailed view in the game is during battle mode. The game switches from its semi-3d look to a full 3d rendered area of sea (or coast if it’s a town attack). The ships are very nicely modeled and behave realistically in the wind and during battle. When your ship, or the enemy's ship gets damaged during combat, small fires break out across the deck and the sails start to rip. You can even see small characters run around on the deck if you look closely. If large battles take place with say, 6 ships, the whole thing can turn a bit sluggish, so for the ones of us with a more budget range pc and video card it is advisable to scale down the battle graphics in the main menu.
Sound:
The game mostly uses a simple arrangement of sounds for each different location/mode. When visiting a town there is only a small amount of ambient background noise consisting of some birds and wind. During battle however every creak the boat makes while turning and the sounds of the waves splashing against the bow are audible. The game is accompanied by a non interruptive and pirate themed musical score, which fits the game quite well.
Conclusion:
Overall pirate hunter is a pretty interesting and very well put together game. The influences of the 1987 Pirates! And the 1994 Pirates! Gold is clearly what the game is based around. This might not be very original, but who cares. The game is great for fans of the Pirates! series and for strategy gamers with a sense of adventure. So pick up your saber, hoist the sails and sail away for some good old classic pillaging and plundering action on your pc!
